Bulgaria links Hezbollah to bombing of Israelis

PAISLEY DODDS VESELIN TOSHKOVAssociated Press

Published 6:45 am, Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Photo: AP

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Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, left, and Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, right, enter the Consultative Council meeting on National Security at the Bulgarian President's office in Sofia, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013. Investigators are releasing a summary of their findings to the Bulgarian government Tuesday which is widely expected to link the militant group Hezbollah to the bus bomb attack on July 18, 2012, that killed five Israeli tourists in the coastal city of Burgas, Bulgaria. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)

FILE - In this Thursday, July 19, 2012 file photo a damaged bus is transported out of Burgas airport, Bulgaria, a day after a deadly suicide attack on a bus full of Israeli vacationers. U.S. officials expect Bulgarian investigators to link the militant group Hezbollah to the July 18 attack in the coastal city of Burgas, in which a bomb ripped through a bus that was taking the tourists to their hotel. Bulgarian authorities are expected to release their findings on Tuesday Feb. 5, 2013. (AP Photo/ Impact Press Group, File)

FILE - In this Thursday, July 19, 2012 file photo a damaged bus is transported out of Burgas airport, Bulgaria, a day after a deadly suicide attack on a bus full of Israeli vacationers. U.S. officials expect

Bulgarian officials attend the Consultative Council meeting on National Security at the Bulgarian President's office in Sofia, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013. Investigators are releasing a summary of their findings to the Bulgarian government Tuesday, which is widely expected to link the militant group Hezbollah to the bus bomb attack on July 18, 2012, that killed five Israeli tourists in the coastal city of Burgas, Bulgaria. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)

Bulgarian officials attend the Consultative Council meeting on National Security at the Bulgarian President's office in Sofia, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013. Investigators are releasing a summary of their findings to

Europol's director Rob Wainwright looks on during an interview in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday Feb. 4, 2013. Investigators say a Canadian and an Australian are suspects in a remote-controlled bomb attack that killed Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. Authorities also said that evidence in the bombing pointed back to Lebanon and to the Islamist militant group Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Europol's director Rob Wainwright looks on during an interview in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday Feb. 4, 2013. Investigators say a Canadian and an Australian are suspects in a remote-controlled bomb attack that

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Hezbollah bombed a bus filled with Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year, investigators said Tuesday, describing a sophisticated bombing carried out by a terrorist cell that included Canadian and Australian citizens.

Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, in the first major announcement in the investigation into the July 18 bombing that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian driver, said one of the suspects entered the country with a Canadian passport, and another with one from Australia.

"We have well-grounded reasons to suggest that the two were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah," Tsvetanov said after a meeting of Bulgaria's National Security Council. "We expect the government of Lebanon to assist in the further investigation."

Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political party that emerged in response to Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, has been linked to attacks and kidnappings on Israeli and Jewish interests around the world. The group has denied involvement in the Bulgaria bombing.

The bomb exploded as the bus took a group of Israeli tourists from the airport to their hotel in the Black Sea resort of Burgas. The blast also killed the suspected bomber, a tall and lanky pale-skinned man wearing a baseball cap and dressed like a tourist.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Europol Director Rob Wainwright said the bomb was detonated remotely using a circuit board that a Europol expert has analyzed. Although it was initially believed to be a suicide bombing, Wainwright said investigators believe the bomber never intended to die.

Two counterfeit U.S. driver's licenses that were found near the bombing scene were traced back to Lebanon, where they were made, Wainwright said.

He said forensic evidence, intelligence sources and patterns in past attacks all point to Hezbollah's involvement in the blast.

"The Bulgarian authorities are making quite a strong assumption that this is the work of Hezbollah," Wainwright said. "From what I've seen of the case -- from the very strong, obvious links to Lebanon, from the modus operandi of the terrorist attack and from other intelligence that we see -- I think that is a reasonable assumption."

Europol, which helps coordinate national police across the 27-nation European Union, which includes Bulgaria, sent several specialists to help investigate the attack.

The investigators found no direct links to Iran or to any al-Qaida-affiliated terror group, Wainwright said.

Linking Hezbollah to the attack is likely to escalate tensions between Israel and Iran, and provoke diplomatic headaches within Europe.

The United States considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization. The EU does not, and linking the group to the Bulgarian attack will increase pressure on it to do so. France and Germany had pressured investigators not to publicly name Hezbollah as responsible for the bombing, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

For Hezbollah, the accusation comes at a horrible time.

Despite its formidable weapons arsenal and political clout in Lebanon, the group's credibility and maneuvering space has been significantly reduced in recent years, largely because of the war in neighboring Syria but also because of unprecedented challenges at home.

Hezbollah still suffers from the fallout of a month-long 2006 war with Israel, in which it was blamed by many in the country for provoking an unnecessary conflict by kidnapping soldiers from the border area.

Since then, the group has come under increasing pressure at home to disarm, leading to sectarian tensions between Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah supporters and Sunni supporters from the opposing camp that have often spilled into deadly street fighting.

The civil war in Syria, the main transit point of weapons brought from Iran to Hezbollah, presents the group with its toughest challenge since its 1982 inception. Hezbollah's support for the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad has proved costly and the group's reputation has taken a severe beating at home. In addition, Assad's problems could affect its main supply route from Syria; last week, Israeli warplanes bombed what was believed to be a shipment of sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles headed to Hezbollah.

The announcement also came ahead of a U.N.-backed tribunal for four Hezbollah members allegedly involved in the 2005 Beirut truck bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was then Lebanon's top Sunni politician. Hezbollah denies the charges and has refused to hand over the suspects.

New troubles for Hezbollah could also add to Iran's international isolation. The Iranian regime is already under international sanctions for its suspect nuclear program, and has seen its position weaken due to its close ties with the Syrian regime.

Wainwright warned the attack, along with a wave of attacks against Israelis around the world in the past year, is an indication of a real threat to Israelis and Jews in Europe.

"Even if it's not Hezbollah, it has still obviously been carried out by an organization with some capability in the world, so the threat remains," Wainwright said. "I don't want to exaggerate the scale of that threat, but I think law enforcement authorities -- government authorities -- should take notice of this incident and prepare for the possibility at least of similar attacks in Europe."

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Matt Lee in Washington; Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia; Joseph Federman in Jerusalem and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed to this report.